www.consortmedical.com
Consort Medical is a leader in medical devices for inhaled drug delivery and anaesthesia. The Group develops drug delivery systems for the pharmaceutical industry and disposable airway management products for critical care settings in hospitals.
Consort Medical on track to achieve full year guidelines as Bespak H2 trading picks up
Consort Medical (LSE: CSRT) said its plan to drive growth in the medium term has been progressing well and the business is set to hit its performance targets for the current year.
Trading conditions at the group’s division Bespak’s core respiratory business have picked up in the second half of the year as order levels were slightly higher than anticipated, resulting in a marginal improvement in performance. The business has recently made the initial supply of new vales to a major global customer and achieved an increase in device sales to an existing customer as two of its device programmes entered the industrialisation phase.
The recently acquired Medical House business has been fully integrated into Bespak and will now be rebranded Bespak Injectables. The group expects the combined business to fully achieve synergies by the end of this month.
Bespak has already received stock build orders for the Dr Reddy’s device, expecting to secure FDA (US Food and Drugs Administration) in mid 2010. The contract with a major pharmaceutical company is progressing well and the customer has declared that the development phase has been completed and is now progressing towards regulatory filing on schedule.
Bespak Injectables is expected to achieve the goal of becoming accretive in the next fiscal year, as was anticipated by the group.
The King Systems division has continued to make progress with its manufacturing automation and transformation plans, though its output was below last year’s levels due to a disruption at its core Noblesville facility, which was further exacerbated by an unusually cold winter. Consort expects the turnover at the division to be flat on last year and the order intake to remain strong.
The group had a net debt of £39 million at the end of February, while cash from unused headroom facilities amounted to £27 million.
“The board can confirm that the initiatives required to drive growth over the medium term are progressing well, and remains confident that Consort Medical will deliver trading results for the year in line with its expectations,” Consort said in the statement.
The market responded positive to the update, and shares in the company rose nearly 2%.
